Unit 1 Continued

Psychoanalytic Criticism FREUD

Id vs. superegoId- desire Superego- cultural expectations of performance and behavior ego mediates between the id (desire) and the superego (cultural expectations of performance and behavior) we in a sense float amongst these forms explains why we are, at times, disconnected. There is no sense of balance our lives, our dreams, our literary creations; these become the battleground where the forces within us struggle for control

The Connection of the Psyche to Literature

Literature is the manifest content that reveals the subconscious (like our dreams) Look for condensation (putting all thoughts, fears, doubts, anxieties in one image) these are found in our use of metaphors. Ex. The Frankenstein monster a metaphor for the doubts and concerns connected to scientific progress (the atom bomb) and the degendering of the female in modern times. And displacement (where you project your fears, anxieties into another) Ex. metonymy a full

moon makes people act strangely figurative images are inspired by a picture the subconscious wishes to create. In the construction of a literary world, we watch as authors and characters suffer from
Neurosis (disavowal of a piece of reality) Psychosis (a complete, if temporary, foreclosure of the real world) attempt to wipe away all sensoria of the real world and replace with the fantasmatic however, some images of the real seep in a metaphor can function much the same. ex. seeing the Earth as a ship at sea (vs stationary Medieval Ages) has a profound impact on how we look at our relationship to others

and our assessment of our importance yet we still have remnants of the previous world (illusory centering of our universe)

superego gives way to id; neurosis develops

Freud & The Goblin Market

The forms of metaphor as they play out within the poem are very interesting. Neurosis is a damaging condition because it is first an illusory form of abreaction (relief/release) and second, because the neurosis merely covers a wound of some kind, as the neurosis develops, the wound becomes increasingly entrenched in the individual. Laura reveals both the moment of id over superego, and the estrangement caused by such an act. This is also connected to a woman writing about the lure of

sensuous desire at a time when women are (often violently) denied their sexuality.

Freud & "The Dead" Lily's interaction with Gabriel; superego in control, id still appears
The interaction between Gabriel and Lily illustrates a way in which the id can still appear even at those moments where the superego is in control. Gabriel is at a party, maniacally concerned with appearances, and yet, with the flip of a coin, a quick moment of dark anger/embarrassment or both bubbles to the surface. The violence of the superegos repression leads the Freudian analyst to examine the briefest of moments (for it is often in those brief moments that the repression cannot be maintained and we get the clearest picture of the id).

Gabriel & Gretta

The repressions of the couple in The Dead

are doubly tragic as they reveal two people actively involved in moving farther and farther away from whatever passion, energy, life they might have within themselves. They are both performing to an exterior world and suffering in an interior one. A Freudian perspective also helps to explain the dissolution of his character at the end of the tale... if ego is the battlefield of id and superego... then what happens if the id has died (the scorned lover) and the superego has as well (he is no longer concerned with success... is there success in such a frozen land?).

***Is Joyce saying that it is

better to be Michael, the passionate id that burns itself out, or Gabriel, the controlled superego that lives on as an automaton or neither (are they all dead in the end?).***